AMHERST, N.Y. — For 26 years, Jim Kelly had played flag football with the kids who enrolled in his football camp.

As Day 2 of Year 27 of the camp got underway on Thursday morning, Kelly once again joined the flag football game, albeit for only about 10 minutes.

"Trust me, I wasn't moving too fast," he said.

But he was there, in motion, active, and continuing to fight back against sinus cancer after a barrage of springtime radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

"I feel pretty good," Kelly said from the camp sidelines at Sweet Home High School. "It's a very long, slow process."

Part of the process involves putting weight back on. The former Buffalo Bills star quarterback has lost 51 pounds. But even weight gain is a slow, methodical process. He has only begun to eat solid food; scrambled eggs the past few days and a half-plate of pasta from Ilio DiPaolo's Italian Restaurant in Hamburg on Wednesday night.

"I told Dennis (DiPaolo) I'll be back to where I can eat a full plate," Kelly said.

The vast majority of his nutritional needs are maintained through a feeding plug in his stomach. "I have no saliva, I have no taste buds," he said. "I get all my food through a can."

While he doesn't know what the future holds, the Pro Football Hall of Famer recently received good news: there has been no spread of the cancer. But he said it takes eight to 12 weeks "for the radiation and chemo to do its job."

Kelly will have an MRI in the second or third week of August to find out "if the cancer has left my body.

He also wanted to join his camp coaches in reinforcing one of the messages.

"Part of being Kelly tough is not only the physical part, it's the mental part," he said, "and that means being able to pick the right friends. You are who you hang with. Show me your friends and I'll show you your future."

Except in his case. Cancer is no friend and, as such, Kelly knows there is no way to predict his future.

"I don't know where I'm going to be," he said.

Kevin Oklobzija writes for the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y.

Former New York governor George Pataki, right, honors Jim Kelly during a ceremony at the Executive Mansion in Albany, N.Y. on June 4, 1997. Pataki declared 'Jim Kelly Day in New York state, citing Kelly's accomplishments in football and his service to children in the community. Kelly, whose son has cerebral palsy, founded The Kelly Foundation in 1987 to provide funds for specially challenged youth. (Photo: Tim Roske, Associated Press)

Jim Kelly takes notes at his football camp at St. John Fisher College in Pittsford, N.Y. on Tuesday, July 23 2013. This is Kelly's first public appearance in Rochester since announcing that he had cancer. (Photo: Carlos Ortiz, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle/USA TODAY Sports)